dwpfister

Curious if anyone else has run into this...

2020 GLE350, 4 months old, about 4200 miles on it. Not a stitch of trouble (until this), and absolutely love it.

Last night, we were coming home - did a 60 mile trip (mix of highway/back-roads). All fine. Pull in front of my driveway, stop. Put the car in Reverse; as soon as I do this i feel/hear a "cla-clunk" sound, I press the gas and start going in reverse with this loud grinding sound. Was convinced I ran over a piece of metal that was dragging - wife jumps out from passenger side, looks under tire, sees nothing but says the sound is very clearly coming from passenger front wheel area.

I put it back in drive, same loud grinding noise - again, was convinced I had something dragging under the car. I go out, lay under car with flash light, see nothing. I put the car back in reverse, put it in driveway (grinding noise the whole time) and figured I'd deal with it this morning.

Get in the car this morning, put it in drive, pull out of driveway slowly, grinding noise the whole time. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac, so I start driving in there, giving it a little more gas. Once I got to about 10mph, I hear (what I can only describe as "it figuring itself out") a "cla-clunk" again, and then the noise goes completely away.

I took it for about a 5 minute ride, got it on an empty road and got it up to 70, no issues. No issues braking, no issues turning, steering, etc. Come back home, put it in reverse, back it into the driveway, no issues..

Anyone have anything remotely similar to this on their 2020 GLE350? I googled it, and I see lots of references to similar things on older model/different model vehicles.

Thanks.
--Dave

user 7208224

Wow!! No idea. If it happens again you may want to consider recording it on your phone so that you can play it back for your dealer because you know, as luck will have it, it will stop doing it by the time the service department gets involved.

GregW / Oregon

It sounds an awful lot like an issue I had with my M4 where a rock gets caught between the brake rotor and backing plate. Usually it will work out on its own; reversing can also help. On my BMW they revised the backing plate design and retrofitted them under warranty. I have not heard of this on a GLE, but I think it is highly likely the cause, especially in Winter with more junk on the roads.

Akshay24

I have a similar situation with my 2020 GLE 350 with the "Clonking" sound when I put reverse.
I ran at 15mph and then put a brake when I heard the "cla-clunk" sound while braking.

@dwpfister Do you happen to know if this issue of the sound was resolved by the dealership and what did they do?

Thanks,
Akshay

Lucky 777

Greg beat me to it. Very likely a stone dropped in to a void around the caliper and was rubbing the rotor.